Why is it so hard to find clean books?
I think it comes down to one BIG reason:
You don’t know where to look for clean books.
Because there’s actually A LOT of clean books available and in just about every genre. And many of them are good. Like really, really good. Like keep you up reading past your bed time because you can’t put it down good.
And once you know what a clean book is and where to find you, you’re TBR is going to be exploding and then you’ll be asking “Why is it so hard to find the time to read all of these clean books?”
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What is a clean book?
We really can’t go any further without defining what a clean book is. Especially because there are people out there right now, reading this article and screaming into their phones “Stop saying ‘clean’ it implies that other books are dirty.”
To which I roll my eyes. And also, stop yelling at your phone, you’re scaring the people around you.
I’ve never quite understood this argument though. If I told you, “Hey, last night I stayed up late and cleaned my house.” Would your first thought be: “*gasp* How dare you imply that my house is dirty?” Or are you normal?
See, I knew it. You’re normal. Your response would be, “Cool, your house is clean.” And that would be the end of that.
When I use the term “clean” to describe a book, it’s not meant to shame anyone or imply that other books are dirty. It’s simply an industry term that is meant to let readers know these books are free of graphic violence, swearing, and sexually explicit content. That’s it.
And the industry term is important because a bunch of random people didn’t make up this term to offend a bunch of other people. It’s literally what publishers and big booksellers (like Amazon) use to describe a specific category of books.
I wrote an entire article about how I define clean books on this blog, which you can read by clicking here.
And if you’re interested, you can read about how I define sweet romance by clicking here. But the TL;DR version is I’m basically looking for an overall happy vibe to a book.
Why is it so hard to find clean books?
I have a feeling this topic is probably a lot more nuanced than what we can cover in one blog article.
It has to do with how publishing has changed. In the last decade there has been a push for more sex and swearing in books. (And yes, there’s a push. Authors are literally being told by publishers they don’t even want to read a manuscript if it doesn’t have sex in it. This doesn’t happen everywhere, but it is happening.)
I think finding clean books also has a lot to do with the fact that many readers don’t differentiate between clean and Christian books. The biggest difference here is that Christian books will openly feature strong themes of faith. Clean books will not. Many readers assume that a clean book is the equivalent of a Christian book. Then they decide that it’s either going to be cheesy (which is true in some cases, but not always) or it’s going to be preachy (also true in some cases, but not always) and then they don’t even want to try the book.
And one of the biggest reasons it can be hard to find clean books is because they aren’t mainstream. Many clean authors are independent authors. And while there is nothing wrong with publishing independently (this means you publish your book on your own instead of with a big publisher) it can make visibility more difficult. A lot of readers don’t like to read from independent authors, for reasons that are too vast to discuss here.
But for the purpose of this post, I believe the reason you’re having a hard time finding clean books to read –specifically clean romance– is simply because you don’t know where to look.
Where to find clean books (specifically clean romance):
This is going to be a teach a man to fish situation. Here are my top three ways I find clean books
- Search the Clean & Wholesome category on Amazon: Remember when I told you that ‘clean’ isn’t offensive, it’s literally an industry term? Well, this is proof. Amazon has a ‘Clean & Wholesome’ books category. I like to scroll through the top 100 books every so often to find new books to read. And many of those authors have large backlists, which means you’ll have plenty of books to binge. Here’s a link to that category, bookmark it and check it often because it changes regularly.
- Get familiar with publishers who publish clean books– Yes, this is a thing. Full disclosure, these publishers are Christian publishers, but many of their books are clean and not overtly Christian. And the books that do contain themes of faith are well written and not preachy! Some of my favorite publishers of clean books are Thomas Nelson, Bethany House, and Tyndale.
- Harlequin Romance has a Clean & Wholesome line of books! Yes, that Harlequin. The same on the sells the bodice rippers your Great Aunt used to pick up in the grocery store line. They now have a clean and wholesome line of romance. It’s called Love Inspired and it features clean romance with Christian themes. This line is contemporary romance but they also have Love Inspired Susepense and Love Inspired Historical. All of these books are fantastic and some are written by well known Christian authors like Erica Vetsch and Gabrielle Meyers.
Bonus Tip & Shameless Plug: Follow Me! Not only do I read clean and wholesome romance, I also write it. Be sure to follow me on Instagram and join my monthly newsletter for great romance stories and book recs delivered straight to your inbox!
And if you’re in the market for clean and wholesome children’s books my favorite tip for this is to go vintage! Anything older than the 1990’s (yeah 80’s babies, we’re ‘vintage’ now) tends to have better values and less agenda in the books…if you know what I mean. This rule isn’t always true but it’s certainly a good starting point.
7 Must Read Clean Romance Books
And now for the moment you’ve been waiting for, 7 books that I rave about, loved reading, and are absolutely must reads for any clean romance lover!
This is by no means an exhaustive list of clean books, by the way. Not even close. I tried to pick a wide variety and share authors who have large backlists that will keep you busy reading for a long time!
You thought I was going to give you a long list, didn’t you? Ain’t nobody got time for that, plus if it was a list then you couldn’t look at those pretty covers!! And aren’t they so pretty?
What I did do, is put these together in a sweet collection for you on my Amazon storefront so you can read all about each book and then shop to your little heart’s content. See, don’t say I never did anything nice for you. There’s even a few additional books on the list (including a clean fantasy) because I just couldn’t help myself.
Please enjoy, you can shop the book collection here!
That’s it
Not gonna lie, I’ve been blogging for nearly a decade and I still don’t know how to wrap up a blog post. But that’s all I have. Drop a clean romance you love in the comments!
